Rule Thirty-Four
by Kayka
Summary: After a decade spent Underground, Sarah wants to discover the joys of the internet. Jareth discovers his inner fangirl instead. A one-shot of established Sareth nonsense. Amusing and something of an aberration, much like an operatic goblin, albeit slightly less grating on the senses.


**Disclaimer:** I subscribe to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and therefore, in some parallel dimension this me can never reach, I own Labyrinth, and perhaps several other franchises which may or may not be mentioned here. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the characters, _that_ universe is not _this_ universe.

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**Rule Thirty-Four**

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"Give me the laptop, Jareth."

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," he inclined, nodding in mock solemnity.

"I haven't even had it a week yet, and _you_ have been using it for the past three days. Straight."

The king tapped his chin, still mesmerized by whatever it was he saw on the screen. He deigned to answer, after a distracted moment.

"I seem to recall a woman that was ever so insistent upon my mastery of this technology."

Strictly speaking, this was true. Sarah _had _wanted Jareth to get with the twenty-first century, if only so he could figure out how to set up a trans-dimensional internet router. A connection which he was now monopolizing.

Sarah squared her jaw and decided to change tactics. If she could figure out what had captured his attention so rapturously, perhaps she could think of a way to divert it.

"But you're not even _doing_ anything," she groused, "you just keep scrolling down_. Forever_."

Jareth's lips quirked as he looked up to address her directly, incidentally stopping on a moving image of a dapper gentleman and his much beleaguered comrade. Glancing at it, he announced loftily, "As ever, you _see_, Sarah, but you do not _observe_."

At the sound of frustration and ensuing glare from his queen, Jareth's grin broadened as he returned to his task, "I quite like this Sherlock fellow."

"All I _observe_ is you aimlessly pressing the space bar."

He continued aimlessly pressing the space bar.

"_Jareth_."

He scrolled past gifs of fluffy baby animals and foolish human tricks. He apparently found what he was looking for, stopped scrolling, and turned the device so that Sarah could see the screen.

"Perhaps the Avengers are more your thing, Precious. Or rather, the villain, Locksley."

Sarah rolled her eyes. Jareth could be petulant when he thought he was not getting his due attention.

"It's _Loki_, and you know it."

He sniffed.

"If I remember correctly, you were paying far more attention than you ought to the way he _sat _in the prequel."

Evidently, Jareth thought a demonstration was in order and he shifted from his indolent position draped across his throne to another equally, though somehow considerably more lewd, indolent sitting position.

At this Sarah blushed furiously.

"Okay. That's it."

Sarah made to snatch the machine, only for Jareth to hop from his perch on the throne with a speed that would have been impressive had Sarah not been terribly annoyed. He childishly hoisted it above his head. Naturally, Sarah ineffectually tried to jump for it, using one Goblin King as leverage. This, in turn, resulted in the pair sprawled compromisingly upon the Goblin Throne. The laptop hovered above innocuously, a feat that obviously should not have been tenable.

_With any luck he'll have bruised his tailbone pulling a move like that._

She tried to squirm away, but Jareth anticipated this move and clasped his hands behind her back. She continued wriggling.

Apparently the royal posterior had not suffered from its abrupt meeting with the stone seat, and the owner of said posterior decided that it had been far too long since he had last tormented his Lady.

"Tut, tut, dearest, you have me at a disadvantage. I believe I ought to rescind your title of 'Queen of Sharing and Fair Play'."

"Let me up."

"No."

He grinned that infuriating sharp, toothy grin that made Sarah want to kiss him senseless… or head-butt him. She_ knew_ that look, though. She had learned over the years that, sometimes, it was really just better to compromise.

"Fine. If you won't let me up, show me why you've been doing nothing for days."

"Ah, but what shall I receive in return?"

Sarah snorted. "The right to sleep in our bed tonight."

He pretended to mull it over.

"Will there be sleeping? Or," he rolled his hips against her, "will there be _sleeping_?"

"Don't push it, or there will be goblins and an operatic rendition of the song that never ends."

Jareth chuckled.

"How very wicked of you, my Queen. Though, I would fear that the ensuing spectacle might scar the little beasts. It's probably best that they're left out of the equation altogether. The song, too."

"Yeah, yeah. Computer, Jareth."

He allowed her to turn in his arms so that they sat sideways across the throne. The laptop floated down and balanced on Sarahs knees.

Her first impression was that whatever he had found to entertain himself with was very _blue_. It was a nice dark blue, though. She noticed something in the top corner that seemed a good place to start.

"_Followers, _Jareth?"

"Ah, yes," He beamed with affection, "My minions."

"I'm pretty sure it says, 'followers.'"

He waved a hand airily.

"One and the same, darling."

Sarah's brow furrowed.

"But how did you get so many?" She turned a bit to look at him. "You could have only had this account for a couple of days, but you have _thousands_."

"I'm the _Goblin King_," he stated as if this should answer the question unequivocally.

Sarah rolled her eyes, knowing that was the best she was going to get for now.

Then, he started scrolling, and there were so many _things_. It was a whirlwind of animated gifs, 'ships' and 'oh tee pees,' randomly assorted funny manipulations, and short text stories. A half an hour later, Sarah was almost able to see how Jareth managed to spend several days doing this; he really _could_ scroll down forever.

"You're scrolling too fast! That was a Ross and Rachel gif set!"

"You've seen it. It was obnoxious and repetitive," he sneered.

"But he's her lobster!"

Jareth stared at Sarah blankly.

"I fail to see where crustaceans come in to it."

Sarah sighed dramatically. She was ready to leave him to his devices, though she was considering implementing limitations on his computer time. The last thing the kingdom needed was a king with an internet addiction. She would have to wait until he wasn't using it before she could do anything, but it was definitely doable. Sarah had not spent a decade plus Underground without developing a few magics of her own.

Her attention refocused as she realized that Jareth scrolled past something too quickly for her to completely grasp.

"Wait, was that _porn_?"

Jareth grimaced.

"It totally was, wasn't it?" She nudged him in the ribs, smirking. "Someone's been a naughty boy."

"I can't control what appears next. That's part of the novelty, love."

His voice was tight, and she would almost say he was embarrassed were it not for the fact sex did not embarrass him. Which meant he had just been caught hiding something.

"Scroll back up."

"Come now, Sarah, there's no need to subject yourself-"

"_Jar_eth."

He huffed, but did as she requested. Sarah stared. Then, Sarah stared some more. When she was finished with that staring, she stared a third time. Jareth was considerate enough to reach around and tap her gawping mouth closed with an index finger to her chin.

"Is that supposed to be _us_?"

Jareth grunted noncommittally, but didn't seem too surprised by the image itself.

"There's _more,_ isn't there?"

"Yes, though it's not usually so explicit."

Sarah turned her head and arched an accusatory brow.

"It's not_ always _so explicit," he amended.

"Show me the rest."

Seeing little alternative, other than reordering time- not that he _could _because she would _know_, Jareth complied.

"That's pretty damn explicit."

"It does seem to be a bit," he tilted his head slightly, "_ambitious_."

He met her eyes with a sharp grin, "We could always try it later, if you like."

"Give me that!"

This time, she snatched the machine before he could lodge a formal protest.

She likely would not have succeeded so easily if he weren't embroiled in plotting out the mechanics of such a titillating possibility.

For her part, Sarah was discovering more such _possibilities_ with every tap of the space bar. She was torn between abject horror and morbid curiosity. It was almost the same feeling she got from watching the goblins play water polo. Though, in their case, the 'water' part of the title came from bog filled balloons, and they used semi-feral boars as steeds.

Eventually she slumped back as she searched. He was right; the pictures were not all explicit. Though, the ones that were made Sarah blush furiously. Like her newest find. Sarah sat bolt upright again.

"What the _hell_?"

"I find no fault with it."

"Of course _you_ don't! They've been incredibly," Sarah gesticulated, "_generous_!"

"They ship us. _I _ship us. What reason is there not to be flattered?"

"That's not the point, Jareth."

Leave it to him to find what was quite possibly the most embarrassing series of things she had ever seen to be no big deal. But the whole thing was really _weird_.

"How, though? And why? How could thousands of people possibly know about us well enough to draw _that_?"

"There are many worlds; we were bound to be a known fiction in some of them." He shrugged as if such were an everyday occurrence. "And this _is_ a trans-dimensional internet connection. It's bound to wander a bit dimensionally."

"Or _someone_ hooked it up wrong. Probably on purpose," she challenged.

He disentangled himself and strode a safe distance away. Sarah thought this was probably a wise move on his part.

"Perhaps _someone_ needed an anchor and the path of least interference."

"What's _that _supposed to mean?"

He pulled a crystal and tossed it to her. She looked inside.

"This particular world is much the same as the one you hail from. Though in it, we exist only as a film in which you leave my kingdom in shambles. It was a logical choice. The rest was enjoyably incidental."

She really could not be angry at him for that. A sustained magical connection was tedious and worked best if there was something familiar to latch on to at the other end.

Sarah was, for the most part, appeased. There was really nothing she could, or should, do about a world that was not actually her own.

She glanced back to the screen and noticed a post she had missed previously.

"Jareth?"

"Yes, Precious?"

"Please, tell me that you didn't seriously commission smutty fan fiction and more illicit fan art."

The smirk on his face was a tad too smarmy, and the Goblin Queen snapped. Just a teensy bit. Really, the battle cry that issued forth from Sarah's mouth would have made Charlie Brown proud.

The King was laughing in fit-like heaves, pinned and straddled by a Queen that had just tackled him to the ground.

A young boy and his disgruntled babysitter had the misfortune to choose that moment to come upon the spectacle.

"Hoggle," the boy paused, head tilted and brow furrowed, "why is Mommy killing Daddy?"

"She ain't tryin'a kill'em."

This comment was punctuated by royals' positions being flipped, feminine screeching, and language that was rather inappropriate for a little prince's ears.

"Well, she ain't sear-yusly tryn'a kill'em."

Hoggle redirected his young charge out of the line of fire in the throne room and back toward safer territory. The oubliettes were especially nice this time of year. They could even play hide and dodge the cleaners.

"I'd tell yeh yeh'd understand it when you was older, but I'm old as dirt, an' I still don't get it."

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**A/N: **For the uninitiated, rule 34 of the internet: if it exists, there_ is_ porn of it.

Did I just corrupt anyone? Sorry.

And, yes, Jareth's on Tumblr. I don't even know. He found it on the Google.

I started this after staying awake for three days straight to finish my dissertation. I naturally passed out before finishing, and it was shelved until I could figure out what exactly my sleep deprived brain was trying to do_. I still am not completely sure what my sleep deprived brain was trying to do_, but I thought I'd just go ahead and finish it, as I really didn't want to stay awake for another three days to find out.

In my head, this could be a '13ish years later' accompaniment to 'Nothing Unusual, Nothing Strange.' Though if I ever do get around to writing a proper sequel to that, know that it will pick up where the original left off and this is not it. This is just possibly set in the same universe. Maybe.


End file.
